The money I'd accumulated from being in the army mixed with the money my parents had stored away was enough to keep me comfortable if I refrained from any shopping sprees.
My new caregiver had really turned the house around. She'd ripped off all the plastic, taken care of dust, thrown away the rotten bottles of wine.
She even called into the electrician and arranged for them to bump up when they were coming.
I struggled to keep from laughing as she yelled at the man on the other line. She had ordered him to provide what he was supposed to instead of slaking on his butt for another day.
She'd later apologized to him for her rudeness, which I thought was unnecessary. But I digress.
Hadley had taken my card to get food. I wasn't worried, I could track her purchases from my tablet and I trusted her, against my better judgment.
I had refrained from entering any of the bedrooms, insisting on sleeping on the couch, even with Hadley's pushing.
Electricity was back and I was waiting till the right moment to go back into the basement and figure out what they were doing down there.
I sat on my sleeping area/couch, looking up at the rotating fan that hung from the ceiling.
The silence agonized me. There were always noises at the base, trainees practicing, boots going down the hall, or even the hum of the machines that powered the place.
But I just sat there all day every day, boredom a constant feeling.
I let my arm fall over my eyes. "I'm useless."
The feeling when your foot is asleep was basically how my prosthetics felt. It was stiff and numb but not completely. It felt like a peg leg, bulky and shit.
I lifted the collar of my shirt and smelt its stink. I hadn't had much motivation to change clothes or take care of myself or anything. Nor did I have many outfits. Back in the army, it was the same uniform and you didn't have to worry about what matched or not. But my uniform was confiscated, and I didn't have any clothes to replace it with.
I got up onto my feet, walking to the bathroom after grabbing a travel size bottle of shampoo I'd bought at a gift shop on the way here with my sergeant. I only got it because it had a nicely drawn picture of a soldier in uniform on the bottle. Our flag of stars was behind the soldier as he stood proudly.
I locked the door behind me, precautionary measures just in case Hadley came home early.
I started the bath, taking a good three minutes getting the faucet to spew the right temperature.
A quick look through the cabinet revealed an unopened bottle of bubble bath and I squirted enough in the bath to coat the whole surface of the water with small piles of bubbles.
I sat on the edge of the tub as I unstrapped my leg. It was like separating two magnets, same went for the hand, but for the lack of two, I used my teeth to assist in the unstrapping.
The water rose a bit as I sunk in the tub. I slid till my face was the only thing above water, soap tickled my skin.
After a few moments, I opened up the bottle of shampoo and made my hair all bubbly. I'll admit to my immaturity showing itself.
When the bath ended I dried myself off poorly and put my hand and leg back on, once again having to use my teeth.
My shirt stuck to my back. I took a short glance at the mirror, my hair was a mess. I didn't bother to do anything about it though.
I left the steamy bathroom finding Hadley stocking the fridge. I poked my head over her shoulder, I grimaced at all the healthy food she'd piled in.
She looked at me, I backed off about an inch. "What'd you used to eat at your base?"
I was pretty indifferent about what we used to eat. It wasn't good but it was what we got. It was all I got for most of my life. They were called 'Nutrition Packs' we took them twice a day and they did the job.
"None of that leafy crap," I told her.
I had a bad experience with salad before. It was on a venter in Trena, where we stayed at their base and they gave their soldiers actual food. I was so ready to like it and be jealous of the Trena army, but all I got was food poisoning.
"Picky huh?" She smirked. "I've got something special that I think will make you like it."
I always held my breath when she smiled, it was nearly an instinct.
"I'm not picky I just- I haven't ever tried chocolate or ice cream. Salad is dumb."
Hadley closed the fridge and leaned up against it. "Well, you're in luck because I got you chocolate ice cream. But only if you eat the salad."
"I'm not a child."
I had looked into it, not a lot of people in Hadley's profession were like her. Most were stiff and there for just the paycheck (since it was a very well paying job). I wasn't as disabled as a lot of others, so that might have helped her treatment of me. But I like to think it was because she was just a good person.
Hadley was one of those people that you felt like you've known for years when its only been a few days. I'd been with her, or she'd been with me, for about a month or so.
My eyes dragged to the basement door. I clenched the key inside my pocket. My heart was a bouncy ball across my ribs every time I thought about going down there.
I didn't want to think that my parents were bad people. When I was first told about them I imagined them as kind-hearted beings with only the best of interests for people in mind. The kind of people who donated a large chunk of their savings to charity, or something like that.
Now that the electricity was back the servers would be active and I'd be able to access all they had down there.
I briefly considered keeping it locked and losing the key. But the truth was more important than my feelings.
My head was wrought with conflictions as the day went on.
As the sun went down the house started to fill with the smell of dinner. Hadley had been concocting a dinner of lasagna, of which I'd never had before, and the salad. Ugh. But I'd give it the benefit of the doubt, cause it all smelled really good.
And it was good, even the salad, because it had been decked in a homemade dressing Hadley had made.
After dinner, I helped Hadley get the dishes done and she once more insisted I go to one of the bedrooms.
"It's not good for you to sleep on the couch every night."
"Where I sleep is none of your business."
"Yeah, it is actually."
"Jeez, you act like a strict babysitter."
"I basically am."
A sudden question came to my mind and I couldn't help but ask it. I turned to face her with a serious almost worried expression. Her mess around attitude dropped almost immediately.
"Why did you come here?" I said in the kindest way I could.
She weaved her brows. "Because it's my job."
I pursued my lips. "Why here, specifically."
"Because I was offered to be your caregiver and I accepted.."
"You must be far away from your family."
"I don't have one."
As I questioned her, Hadley's answers were immediate and sure.
"Why'd you chose this profession?"
"Because I wanted to help people."
"Could you leave if you wanted to?"
"If I wanted I could always transfer you to another caregiver."
"Why do you treat me like I'm your friend?"
"Because I know you don't what to be treated like your a hopeless case because you're not." That was her final answer. "Now let's go upstairs you are not sleeping on the couch again."
I looked at her eyes. They were unyielding. The shine in her eyes had a hint of lie, like she was keeping something back, something she wouldn't tell me.
I obliged this time. I clenched the railing with one hand and Hadley held the other. I decided to go to my parents' room, the other had a small bed.
When I got inside I put all the framed photos face down except for one. It was of someone I didn't know, a friend of my parents or something. I tucked the photo of John in the frame.
Hadley asked me who he was. I could have called him a friend or a coworker. But none of those words really felt like enough. So I just said, "His name is John."
She bit her lip, then said goodbye. The door closed with a click.
I turned off the lights to create the illusion that I was going to bed, but I remained awake, clenching the metal key in my pocket. I sat there and stared at the horizon out my window.
I remembered when I had first gotten into the army, I must have been under ten years old. There was a war going on, it was closer to home than ever. The opposing side had more power and more soldiers than us. So my country had to take desperate measures. Little kids had been drafted, it went so little as seven-year-old army men. Our training had been quick but extensive, we barely got any sleep.
All the children were placed on the front line and that's how we won the war. They wouldn't shoot at children, but we shot at them.
After the war ended every child was given a choice, to go back home or stay and fight. I had been so hungry for justice. The fight for justice gave me reason, purpose. I chose to stay, to fight for my country.
It ended me here. And I wasn't sure whether to hate that or not.
After I was sure Hadley was asleep I tip-toed downstairs. I hugged the walls, those parts of the floor being less creaky. I unlocked the basement door. The light from inside took a moment to adjust to.
The servers were illuminated by blue, the place was awake. I walked up to the touch screen, I'd seen these types before, ones that cover the wall entirely. They were in the meeting room at my base.
I dragged two fingers down the screen and it lit up. Reports and scans came up one by one, filling up the screen. I expanded a report dated a month after my parents' death.
The report was part of a long chain moving five years, under the title "The Trena Plague."
Trena was a country connected to ours. They had a lot of resources and were our ally, but the report described my parents being told to create a disease that can kill only Trena people.
The first reports talked about trying to find a similarity between all the Trena, later talking about the design of the disease. They'd almost completed it, but the report that had popped up was followed by nothing.
I pulled up a search bar, dragging it to the middle of the screen. A keyboard appeared beside it.
I'd always been best at typing with my dominant hand, but the screen didn't register a metal hand. I used my right hand, being careful to avoid mistakes. I typed 'The Trena Plague.'
The search bar came up with one result, I tapped it. It was by a news station 'The Galif Satellite' I remembered that. It was our country's news station, sponsored and headed by the government.
The article's headline ran:
TOP GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS DENOUNCE THE TRENA PLAGUE RUMOR
It basically talked about how absurd the rumor is, how it was a big hoax probably spread by a terrorist with a few fewer brain cells than the average one. But after seeing all my parents' reports I wasn't so sure it was. But why would they wanna do this?